Monday, February 28, 2011

Every time she opens her mouth and lets loose her latest litany of seizure-inducing inanities, the media—dutiful stenographers that they are—respond with Pavlovian immediacy. They hail her as a trailblazer and a model for working mothers everywhere, even as they proceed with their objectifying scrutiny of her every questionable fashion decision. She invites the derision of the political opposition and the praise of the political base, while a majority of the country has largely made up its mind about her. She is over-hyped, over-covered, and over-rated.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

In his recent hour-long screech on a Tripoli balcony, Muammar Qaddafi vowed to hunt down his own rebellious people "inch by inch, house by house, room by room, alley by alley" and to wipe them out "to the last drop of blood". An Israeli musician and journalist named Noy Alooshe -- who is of Tunisian descent, by the way -- caught the speech. He noted the rhythmic repetitions, the zany clothes, and the trippy way Qaddafi kept raising his fists, and said to himself: "Classic hit!"

Alooshe cranked up Auto-Tune and remixed Qaddafi's speech as a mash-up with "Hey Baby," a song by American rappers Pitbull and T-Pain. . . . It went viral across the Arab world.

Some Arab viewers were put off to discover the video's Israeli provenance, but the vast majority, it seems, think it's terrific. In Libya in particular, young revolutionaries are loving it. The New York Times says the video has become a "popular token" of the Libyan uprising.

Read the whole thing. It's really not about hating Marxists in general, but about a particularly virulent and nasty subspecies: the shameless apologist for totalitarian Communism, that blood-soaked and evil creed.

I am watching the "live from the Red Carpet" broadcast with the sound turned off. Ugh, if I have to listen to one more simpering word from Ryan Seacrest and his botoxed cronies, I am going to hurl. The fashions so far have been ... meh.

Halle Berry's hairdo looked like a feather duster, with bits sticking up every which way as though she had dried her hair in a wind tunnel.

Hilary Swank looked like she wore a feather duster.

Gwyneth Paltrow's golden metallic get-up was ... just ew! Maybe she was attempting to be an Oscar statuette. Rumor has it that she's going to sing tonight. Ugh! I hated her singing schtick on Glee and I'll probably hate her here too.

Sandra Bullock lost her terrifying bangs from the Golden Globes (whew!) and looked OK in red ... but the Oscars aren't for "OK." She looked -- sorry to say this, sweetie -- tired, as if her bun hairdo were an afterthought hurriedly done in the limo on the way there.

Mila Kunis's peekaboo lavender lace gown was OK, but the pale hue did nothing for her.

Anne Hathaway's crimson dress looked fine until your eyes reached the skirt, at which point you too will be forced to ask why ugly lopsided fabric roses were clinging to that dress like hungry remoras on a hapless shark.

Cate Blanchett's dress was, unfathomably, covered with Nerds candies.

Natalie Portman was wearing tassels for earrings. Hey, what high school graduation mortarboard did you steal those from?

I don't know if I actually like Nicole Kidman's origami-ish cream dress with sparkly bits glued on, but her ponytail hairdo seemed out of place with that.

I've been most entranced at this point by Penelope Cruz's red sequin gown, though that was probably because I was half-expecting her enormous bosoms to stage a desperate jailbreak from that bodice.

The Obama administration also behaves as if the weight of the United States in world affairs is approximately the same as that of Switzerland. We await developments. We urge caution, even restraint. We hope for the formation of an international consensus. And, just as there is something despicable about the way in which Swiss bankers change horses, so there is something contemptible about the way in which Washington has been affecting—and perhaps helping to bring about—American impotence. Except that, whereas at least the Swiss have the excuse of cynicism, American policy manages to be both cynical and naive.

Well, OK, but one thing that seems clear enough is that the Middle Eastern tumults are by, for, and about local conditions and local people. They're about locals in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain, etc. being unhappy with their leaders. They're not about Israel (contrary to decades of wonky foreign policy belief) , and they're not about the US and the West either, not really. On the other hand, perhaps Hitchens is being a little unfair in criticizing the administration's foreign policy when it seems to me that the problem is that it's flailing around because IT DOESN'T REALLY HAVE ONE. (Oh, snap!)

I refuse to watch the bloated, self-aggrandizing yet boring perversity that is otherwise known as the Academy Awards (sorry, James Franco -- you might be as cute as a button, but your pretty little face as host isn't enough). Still, I am vaguely curious which film will get the Best Picture Oscar. Here's a useful rundown of the nominees. Oh, and I will watch the red carpet arrivals for the express purpose of mocking the bad outfits that are bound to appear. (If you're in the mood for fashion snarking right NOW, you can relive the hideousness of the Golden Globes.)

Oh, boy. Yeah, it's bad. But articles like this also don't mention that there in the nerd trenches, some of us are absolutely busting our butts to teach well and teach substantively with high standards and expectations.

This is a hilarious list. Oh, never mind the fact that mortality rates for everybody were sky-high! Dark Age denizens had organic veggies and plenty of exercise! They had low unemployment and no obnoxious PAC lobbyists! (Nope, they just had serfdom, nepotism, simony, indulgences, witch hunts, Viking raids, the Black Death, rampant illiteracy, no antibiotics, no indoor plumbing or electricity, and people like the Borgias calling the shots! Plus no high-speed wireless Internet access! Oh, the humanity.)

Interesting. I'm not saying this idea is all good, but it's an interesting opening gambit to a much-needed discussion on higher education today. Note, too, how the author of this piece is a university professor of 20 years' experience (so he must be tenured and a senior scholar), but he still feels the need for anonymity because there are plenty of edu-crats and academics who would probably want to flay him alive for his nerd heresy.

Fantastic! Be warned, though, that the article contains video of all 50 opening sequences, so it could potentially eat up a couple hours of your life! I'm glad to see that the opening titles of "Watchmen" made the list. The movie itself ultimately ended up being ambitious but flawed, but all the same, in my review I did say how awesome the opening sequence was. Still, the opening sequence of "Iron Man" is awesome too in an entirely different way.

Out of approximately 50,000 regular troops, only a hardcore of about 5,000 soldiers and special forces can be considered reliable, and it's simply impossible to retain dictatorial control over a population of almost 7,000,000 people with only a single brigade of soldiers. It is now out of the question as to whether the government can retake the entire country. It can only hold out for as long as possible.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Via an econ prof's blog, here is a whiff of possible scandal involving (the stupendously monikered, by the way) Karl-Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jakob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg. Oh, in this Internet Age, it is both easier to plagiarize and easier to get caught plagiarizing than ever before.

The protests have turned him off, and he's got the personal integrity to say so. The whole mess about the public sector unions shouldn't be about Left and Right, liberal and conservative. I quote from his commentary:

This debate over Gov. Scott Walker's budget bill has been difficult for me. I have progressive values. I believe in gay marriage, I believe in mass transit, I believe in global climate change, I believe in abortion rights, I believe in urban planning and I believe in a single payer health care system. But on the issue of public employee compensation and the role that their unions play in our government, I find myself siding with conservatives.

I don't have a problem with unions in the private sector. Private sector workers should have a chance to collectively bargain for a greater share of the profits they generate. While public sector workers perform valuable services that make society livable, they don't generate profits for the state government. When public sector unions negotiate, the entity on the other side of the collective bargaining table isn't some greedy corporation, it's us, the taxpayers.

I believe that public employees should be well compensated for the valuable work they do. In fact, exceptional public employees should be exceptionally compensated (something that most unions have fought against in favor of pay based on seniority). But like the rest of us in this economy public employees need to make sacrifices.

And the notable futurist, who famously predicted the role of information technology in collapse of the Soviet Union, the rise of the Internet, and the ability of artificial intelligence to beat humans at chess by 1998, has something to say about fossil fuels, energy problems, and climate change -- "No problem."

Monday, February 21, 2011

... let's look ahead to what's on the menu for this year: four adaptations of comic books. One prequel to an adaptation of a comic book. One sequel to a sequel to a movie based on a toy. One sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a movie based on an amusement-park ride. One prequel to a remake. Two sequels to cartoons. One sequel to a comedy. An adaptation of a children's book. An adaptation of a Saturday-morning cartoon. One sequel with a 4 in the title. Two sequels with a 5 in the title. One sequel that, if it were inclined to use numbers, would have to have a 7 1/2 in the title.

Read this. Interesting. Remember, "teachers' unions" (and their union bosses) are not the same thing as "teachers" or "education." To oppose the first thing is not the same thing as the opposing the latter two.

An economist at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government has this to say. Allow me to cut to the chase:

In conclusion, increasing food prices is a major problem, especially in poor nations with large urban populations. The increases cause political instability, bad economic decisions and real hardship. The US contributes to this problem with its ethanol program; to a lesser extent, China does, too, with stockpiling.

Well, DUH! Meanwhile, we continue to pursue the colossally idiotic boondoggle known as ethanol. I can't resist quoting from the report:

The US ethanol subsidy diverted more than 100 million metric tons of corn into ethanol last year. This did little to reduce global warming, and made basic grains and meat more expensive for most people in the world.

It’s probably best not to even try making sense of Beijing’s pronouncements on the 14th Dalai Lama and other Tibetan spiritual leaders: you’ll only make your head hurt. Last week the officially atheist Chinese government’s State Administration for Religious Affairs disclosed plans to enact a new law forbidding the 75-year-old Buddhist deity to be reborn anywhere but on Chinese-controlled soil, and giving final say to Chinese authorities when the time comes to identify his 15th incarnation.

In the romantic liberal vision of this union uprising, determined workers are standing up to the powerful. But there's no fat-cat owner wanting to pocket more profits here. The unions' target in Wisconsin is the taxpayer.

At bottom, this is the unions versus the people.

For much of the Left, though, this about protecting the power of labor. Again, this ignores the fundamental difference between public-sector unions and private-sector unions. Even Franklin Roosevelt said, "The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service."

As the Wall Street Journal pointed out, campaign contributions by government-sector unions, collected through mandatory dues, help elect the public officials who are then supposed to negotiate with them: "The unions sit, in effect, on both sides of the bargaining table."

Read the whole thing. Note how it makes the important distinction between private sector unions and public sector ones. It's a distinction all too often lost in the current debate in Madison.

Jittery Chinese authorities wary of any domestic dissent staged a show of force Sunday to squelch a mysterious online call for a "Jasmine Revolution," with only a handful of people joining protests apparently modeled on the pro-democracy demonstrations sweeping the Middle East.

Authorities detained activists, increased the number of police on the streets, disconnected some cell phone text messaging services and censored Internet postings about the call to stage protests in Beijing, Shanghai and 11 other major cities.

... Many activists said they didn't know who was behind the campaign and weren't sure what to make of the call to protest, which first circulated Saturday on the U.S.-based Chinese-language news website Boxun.com. ... The call is likely to fuel anxiety in China's authoritarian government, which is ever alert for domestic discontent and has appeared unnerved by protests in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen, Algeria and Libya. It has limited media reports about them, stressing the instability caused by the protests, and restricted Internet searches to keep Chinese uninformed about Middle Easterners' grievances against their autocratic rulers.

Roosevelt's reign certainly was the bright dawn of modern unionism. The legal and administrative paths that led to 35% of the nation's workforce eventually unionizing by a mid-1950s peak were laid by Roosevelt.

But only for the private sector. Roosevelt openly opposed bargaining rights for government unions.

"The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service," Roosevelt wrote in 1937 to the National Federation of Federal Employees. Yes, public workers may demand fair treatment, wrote Roosevelt. But, he wrote, "I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place" in the public sector. "A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government."

The Middle East continues to boil over with anti-government protests, and the deaths are piling up in Libya in particular. Here is a heart-rending quote from one of the protesters to CNN:

The government's firm grip on power heightened the concerns of a woman from Benghazi, who urged U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders to help the Libyan people in the face of the government crackdown.

"We have no freedom here," she said. "I speak to all the world, to America, to Mr. Obama: Please help us. We (did) nothing. We want to live a good life."

Friday, February 18, 2011

Despite the terrible impression created by irresponsible teachers in Madison fraudulently calling in sick and hauling children down to protests they do not understand, and despite tactics that have further damaged the already poor image of public sector unions, these working people and their families are not wrongdoers or parasites. But they have allowed themselves to be deceived by the false promises of demagogic and irresponsible politicians and they now stand in the way of inevitable, necessary and ultimately benign changes in the way our society works.

A common theme of the union demonstrators in Madison today was that Governor Walker is a “dictator.” This showed up on sign after sign. It sheds light, I think, on how public union members in particular, and liberals in general, think. What is going on here is that the voters of Wisconsin have elected a Republican Governor and–overwhelmingly–a Republican legislature, precisely so that they can get the state’s budget under control.

What the Democrats don’t like isn’t dictatorship, it is democracy. That is why the Democrats in the Wisconsin Senate fled the state en masse–they prevented a quorum, so that a vote they were going to lose couldn’t take place. Once again, it is democracy they are trying to frustrate, not dictatorship.

One could make the point more broadly about the organized labor movement. The unions’ top priority is to eliminate the secret ballot in union certification elections. Why?

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Ann Althouse, a law professor based in Madison, Wisconsin, is right at in the middle of the current uproar over public sector worker unions, the state government, and Wisconsin's budget troubles. Madison is starting to look like Greece, for goodness sake. I've been inside the lovely state capitol building before, and it's a whole lot lovelier when it's not jammed with angry protesters. As for Wisconsin's budget ills, I hate to say this, but it's not alone, and it might be only a matter of time before we see similar public sector worker unions' temper tantrums in other states. The states are broke.

UPDATE 1: On the news video footage, I saw multiple protest placards depicting Wisconsin governor Scott Walker as Hitler. You know what that means: the group using the Hitler accusation automatically loses. Twice.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Oh, don't you worry, I still hate this pint-sized teen pop idol with the ridiculous hair and his screaming mobs of twelve-year-old fangirls. His nauseating song "Baby" should be ritually condemned as a crime against humanity and then wiped from every single digital music archive on the planet. Having said all that, though, I have to confess that I hate Bieber just a tiny bit less after seeing this. (I can't believe I just said that.)

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

If a specter haunts the chancellories of America, it isn’t communism and it isn’t Karl Marx. It’s Thucydides, the chronicler of the 30 year Peloponnesian War between ancient Sparta and Athens that led to the comprehensive defeat of the world’s first great democratic power. The assumptions most Americans bring to the study of foreign policy — that there are win-win solutions for most problems, that democracy makes for a more peaceful world, that international law can prevail and that power need not be the final arbiter in human affairs — strike Thucydides as pious, nonsensical claptrap.

Unfortunately, he was a very smart man, and much of what he wrote makes sense.

If President Obama thinks education is so important, then why is he hell bent on financially crippling those who seek education? Seriously, why can’t he understand that making education affordable for everybody is not achieved simply by giving everybody the opportunity to take out loans that they cannot pay back?

This semester, Brown University is offering a new course on political conservatism. The university said the course is unrelated to current events and reflects Brown’s commitment to “broad-based academic inquiry and intellectual exploration.’’

... The independent study course — Modern Conservatism in America: Conservative Thought in the 20th Century — was designed by five students in collaboration with Steven G. Calabresi, a visiting professor of political science with a high profile in conservative legal and political circles. Calabresi, a Northwestern University law professor, co-founded the Federalist Society, the nation’s leading forum for conservative and libertarian thinking about the law and its impact on public policy. He also served in the Reagan and first Bush administrations, advised Attorney General Edwin Meese III and wrote speeches for former Vice President Dan Quayle.

Terrence George, a Brown sophomore who helped put the course together, said it “isn’t meant to indoctrinate anybody, but to inform people about a perspective they would not hear about.

“The history of intellectual conservatism at Brown is a history denied,’’ he declared.

For the record, I don't want conservatives brainwashing people any more than I want liberals brainwashing people, but I don't think that's what the class is about. Anyway, it's a welcome thing indeed to see any differing perspectives on campus at all! Even better: clear signs that there are students out there who are thinking for themselves and resisting the one-size-fits-all campus mental orthodoxy. Now there's a kind of academic freedom that's change we can believe in.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Remember when I raved rapturously here and here about Japan's fierce cartoon bunny warriors? That video link to the trailer is dead, but here is a new one or two. Even better, an entire episode is now available online! It's only free for a few more days, but you have GOT to watch this thing. I'm already thinking I'll get the DVD.

It's the most mind-bogglingly awesome, insane thing I've seen in a really long time. Two adorable commando bunnies rack up an impressive body count as they rescue hostages in the desert. This is probably rated R for crazy bloody violence and a bit of language. Enjoy! (The actual episode starts about 4 minutes in.)

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Consider this my Valentine to you all, darlings! James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, both always watchable, lead the cast. I'm trying not to have high expectations because I don't want to be cruelly disappointed at the theater come June!

US marine archaeologists have found the sunken whaling ship belonging to the captain who inspired Herman Melville's classic 19th Century novel, Moby Dick.

The remains of the vessel, the Two Brothers, was found in shallow waters off Hawaii. Captain George Pollard was the skipper when the ship hit a coral reef and sank in 1823. His previous ship, the Essex, had been rammed by a whale and also sank, providing the narrative for the book.

It took a little less than 3 weeks to topple a regime that had lasted for 3 decades. Is it Egypt's Berlin Wall moment? I could write about it, but a picture says a thousand words. Check out these great image galleries from Foreign Policy:

Now all this is great, but it's also not over. We're moving into another phase of the Egyptian revolution -- and one that is arguably even more important with the stakes higher than ever. Still, watching the Internet and Google and social media play their role in connecting the protesters ... More, seeing the fear broken off an atomize populace so it felt the confidence to take to the streets in the cause of freedom ... What a sight it was.

A follow-up to this previous post. Here's one view from the trenches by a "closet conservative." Brother (sister?), I feel your pain. I've been there -- AM there! Actually, I have a few libertarian/conservative/center-right friends at other campuses, and I don't feel SO alone. But we're all "in the closet" and have talked about it with rather rueful humor. And the whole business about "coming out" as a non-liberal is so true it hurts!

Here's a follow-up (or two) on the ongoing recent discussions about state multiculturalism (last post here). Seriously now -- who is really that surprised that the ghetto-ization of foreign people groups has blown up in all our faces?

Killing one native species in order to help another? Only environmentalists could think this is a good idea. I'm waiting for the wildlife biologists -- you know, REAL scientists -- to put the beatdown on the environmentalists. Meanwhile, place all bets now on the barred owl!

It's real. Via the Insta-Prof. FYI, I never discuss my politics when I'm at school. I don't want to attract negative attention, so I guess I'm a big fat moral coward. The gig may soon be up, though. Not long ago, a fellow nerd announced proudly, "I'm a socialist!" and then looked at me expectantly, as if expecting affirmation or agreement. I looked back at him expressionlessly for a moment and gave him the Gallic Shrug. He didn't know what to do with THAT.

A prominent voice in Canada’s Muslim community said British Prime Minister David Cameron was “spot on” when he insisted British multiculturalism has failed.

And just like Britain, Canada’s will fail, said Muslim Canadian Congress founder Tarek Fatah.

He said Monday that, like Britain, Canada has been too tolerant in allowing Muslim immigrants to settle into closed communities, some of which preach Islamic values and a hatred toward the West.

“The Canadian multicultural model has failed, as the British model has,” said Fatah. “When first generation (Muslims) are more loyal to Canada than the second generation, then we have sufficient evidence to say that multiculturalism has failed.”

Citing the Toronto 18 terrorist plot as an example of the extremism that can result from ethnic isolation, Fatah said he hoped Canada can “pick up on” the points Cameron made in a controversial speech on Saturday.

Well, DUH. At least more people are realizing the perils of this practice.

Monday, February 07, 2011

I suppose one thing all so-bad-they're-good films have in common is unbridled enthusiasm. No matter what genre they're acting in, it doesn't occur to an actor in a camp film to tone it down a bit. No director of such films resists a close-up, or a splatter of gore, or a musical sting. It's like watching five-year-olds play soccer. They're no good, but just seeing them go nuts is a joy.

Then check out this statement from Marco Rubio on how the son of Cuban exiles regards Reagan. Hear, hear. You know, Reagan is the first president I remember, and somehow every other president after him has seemed so much smaller.

During the escalation of tensions in Egypt on Friday, police ransacked the offices of the American University in Cairo Press, a major force for academic publishing in and about the Middle East.

While most of the American University in Cairo is located in a new office well outside the center of the city, the press offices overlook Tahrir Square, which has been a central site both for protests and for police attempts to crack down on the protests.

Neil Hewison, editorial director of the press, posted an account of experiences there on the blog of Oxford University Press (which is the North American distributor for American University in Cairo Press). His post about Friday's events said: "Our AUC Press offices were trashed on Friday. The police had broken into the AUC to use the roof of our wing to fire on protesters at the junction of Sheikh Rihan and Qasr al-Aini (we found empty CS canisters and shotgun cartridges up there). And persons unknown ransacked our rooms. Drawers and files emptied, windows broken, cupboards and computers smashed. But it could have been much worse. Meanwhile, the violence may get worse before it gets better."

Not the least of the pleasures the North African revolutions are bringing is the look of astonishment on the face of the foreign policy establishment. The world has become a constant source of surprise for diplomats and ministers, as each news bulletins lands a fresh blow on their crumbling certainties. "Tunisia, who knew?" "Egypt? Egypt! WTF?" So lost has Whitehall become, Alistair Burt, the Middle East minister, admits that the Foreign Office no longer understood foreign affairs. "The tide is turning very strongly," he sighed. "It's not for us to sit here in London and work out where that tide is going to go."

We are witnessing a diplomatic failure as great as the failure to predict the collapse of Soviet communism. Revolts in the Arab world are coming in a manner and from a quarter the experts never expected.

Add another thought: the experts were wrong, and they thought they knew more than they actually did. They had built their assumptions on (pardon the expression as we talk of the Middle East) foundations of sand.RELATED POST:Israel as sideshow, not driving factor.

Thursday, February 03, 2011

Cool! OK, I just have to add that reading the references is in itself a wee bit amusing. See for instance: "Gábor Horváth, an optics researcher at Eötvös University in Budapest, and Susanne Åkesson, a migration ecologist from Lund University, Sweden ..."

Well, well, well. Read the whole thing. That sound you hear is the higher education bubble popping. For the umpteenth time, the one-size-fits-all "everybody must go to college" idea is going to ruin, bankrupt, and in other ways ill-serve too many people. Blurb:

The United States can learn from other countries, particularly in northern Europe, Professor Schwartz says. In Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Switzerland, for instance, between 40 and 70 percent of high-schoolers opt for programs that combine classroom and workplace learning, many of them involving apprenticeships. These pathways result in a “qualification” that has real currency in the labor market.

This one's for Koz and Alessandra and all my peeps who love them some role-playing games. Where are you on this chart? The fact that not only am I instinctively Chaotic Good but matched with "Doctor Who" is just the most natural thing in the world. Click to enlarge, natch.

See what Geoffrey Wawro, the General Olinto Mark Barsanti Professor of Military History and Director of the Military History Center at the University of North Texas, has to say about Egypt now in the light of the 1979 revolution in Iran. Note how utterly disastrous Carter turned out to be on that.

“At the moment, the general perception, in much of the Middle East, is that the United States is an unreliable friend and a harmless enemy. I think we want to give the exact opposite impression.”

You don't say! What we actually want is to be is a steadfast friend and a dangerous enemy. You'd think this would be obvious. But sadly, no! I do like one of Transterrestrial Musings' commenters, who quoted my beloved Tony Stark: "Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?"

There have been various analyses already such as this and this, but from the latter comes this piquant summation:

I asked a former Middle East hand if there was something new here. He replied, "Nothing." Why a nothing speech, then? He answered, "My interpretation is that this is an effort to claim credit. That's why he went immediately after Mubarak. They [the Obama advisers] know they muffed it and missed it and blew it -- so the empty remarks are an effort to establish a counter narrative."

In any other administration, you'd think such an assessment harsh. But remember, this is an administration that views Egypt's revolution as a PR problem. And Obama isn't winning the PR game on this one, not domestically and certainly not internationally. I think the Middle East hand nailed it: The Obama team, after assuring us it didn't much care about the outcome in Egypt, is now, in the vaguest possible terms, trying to say that it was instrumental all along. Except it wasn't.

Oh, my. I've been been heavily critical of the Obama Administration's foreign policy (i.e., it doesn't seem to have a serious clue ... and is John Bolton actually right? Heaven help us all if he is). Worse, it's becoming increasingly evident that the feckless, naive, reactive approach is obvious to .... well, just about everybody.